At all costs

Chapter IX

You all are going to kill me after this one...
Anyway this slowly comes to an end, I hope it keeps entertaining you guys! Give your feelings and enjoy!
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Natasha hugs the blanket full of blood. Her body trembles uncontrollably and tears tear her chest. She has never felt so weak, so vulnerable, but she doesn't care. Nothing matters anymore. Life no longer makes sense to her, so she prays Death every second to come and get her.

Two hours earlier, after eight long hours of suffering and screaming, she had finally evacuated the baby. As big as a bean, he was barely visible in the middle of all the blood she had lost. Delicately, with tears rolling down her cheeks, she had wrapped him in the blanket that covered the bed, and rolled herself into a ball by holding it tightly against her chest.

Since then, she's been crying. Crying for her lost baby without her knowing him, crying for her lost love, crying because she knows that Steve, although he will assure her otherwise, will necessarily resent her for having lost their child, for having lost their miracle, for having failed. For not being strong enough.

She should have fought back. She should have grappled. She's Black Widow for God's sake, not a normal person, let alone a normal soldier. No. She's a killing machine, without emotion or compassion. She's cold, calculating, manipulative. She plays thousands of games at the same time without anyone noticing what she is doing. She laughs at jokes so she internally calculates her knife throw. She is fatal, irresistible, irreversible. She is the moon. Dark and mysterious. Evolving in the shadows, preferring dark to light. The one responsible for three dozen known murders and even more disappearances. The one who pulls the trigger without hesitation, who dances with her daggers a deadly ballet, who thinks at full speed, who anticipates. The one who should never have been trapped so easily, who should have seen the danger coming, a long chill going down her spine, pushing her adrenaline to the maximum.

In short, she is anything but weak. She is everything but the woman she imagines lying on the bed, a complete disaster. She is not supposed to be the woman crying with hot tears while her sticky sweaty hair falls ungainly on her forehead and cheek. She is not supposed to be the little body trembling on the mattress, unable to resist the pressure, the sadness, the absolute emptiness that settles in her. She is not supposed to feel all her emotions through her eyes like ghosts, allowing anyone watching her to read her like in an open book. And neither is she supposed to be the one begging for her greeting, praying at every moment for death to come and get her, so that it stops.

And yet, Natasha knows. She knows that at this very moment, that's exactly who she is. And yet, she couldn't care less than she does now. For the first time in her life, she says shit to the Red Room, to torture, to training, to dance sessions, to sermons on hiding her emotions, to assassinations, to orders, to S.H.I.E.L.D, to what she is supposed to be and to the world. She knows that at this very moment she wants reassuring arms around her, a shoulder to cry on, soft kisses in her hair, the warmth of a body against her, muscles forming a shield between her and this world that throws her so much, lips - Steve's lips - on hers, his tongue playing with hers, his caresses along her back, her hips, her ribs. Steve whispering comfort and tenderness to her. Steve who swears to her that nothing more can happen to her, that he will take care of her for eternity. Steve who arrives by destroying the wall, because nothing and no one can get between her and him. She doesn't care what the Avengers might think if they saw her. Doesn't care that the whole world sees her as weak and desperate. Doesn't care if Thanos comes to torture her again.

All that matters to Natasha now is death. The only way she thinks of, the only way she sees the end of her suffering. She does not dare to move, the pain running through her body clearly indicating that any attempt at movement will result in cries of pain and ever more bruises. She stays there, not even daring to put the blankets up on her frozen body, fingers and cold blue lips.